AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Your vision for the store,” I interrupted. “They’re family and they helped build this store. You can’t fire them, I will not let you.”
“Let me?” Hayden repeated, chuckling in a way that did little to assuage my fears. “Where did you get the idea that I’d be firing them? And for not ‘fitting in’? That’s how low you think of me?”
My mouth hung open, the retorts dying in my throat and leaving me flapping my mouth like a fish out of water. “You- I don’t thinklowof you, but that’s-” I stammered, paused, tried and failed to string my thoughts into a coherent sentence. “So, you’re not going to get rid of them.”
With a hollow chuckle, Hayden set her purse on the table and leaned into it, bracing her hands behind her. “I’m not the monster you think I am,” she murmured. “But I can see why you’d think that way.”
“I don’t think you’re a monster,” I argued, not sure why I bothered, not sure it bugged me that Hayden’s smirk was tinged with a sadness I’d never experienced. Shame crawled along my shoulders, but I kept my head high.
“It’s business,” she said, standing up again and adjusting her clothes. She grabbed her purse and turned back to me. “I don’t have any plans to fire Vanessa or Joe, or you, for that matter. Nor will I do so in the future unless it’s my last resort. If that’s all, I have work to do.”
She didn’t wait for me to speak but disappeared through the door, leaving me standing there feeling like I’d just gone toe-to-toe with a grizzly bear.
And lost.
Chapter ten
Forging Ahead
Hayden
“Excuseme,Hayden,youhave a visitor.”
I glanced up at Marina in confusion.
“I don’t have any meetings scheduled this morning,” I told her, wondering if I’d missed an email or an important phone call.
“I hope I’m more than a little block in your schedule, amore.”
“Vinny?”
I tried to blink away the confusion and shock, looking past Marina to find him standing there. He waved with a bright white smile.
“It’s okay, Marina,” I said, a little detached. “You can let him in.”
“Thank you,querida,” he crooned, and Marina floated off, her cheeks bright red. “Ah, it’s been so long since I last saw you. I’ve been lonely.”
A part of me felt a little guilty that I’d left him hanging for so long, but then again, we were just casual. No need to feel guilty about a bit of fun.
“Did you really miss me that much?” I asked, falling into the role I played with him. It was easy, effortless, to let the weight of the world slip off my shoulders and fall into ignorant bliss for an hour or two.
He walked toward my desk, dark trousers showing off his long legs with each stride. He wore a crisp white shirt, the few buttons near the collar left unbuttoned.
“I miss you the minute we’re apart,” he simpered, and I rolled my eyes.
“Little liar,” I teased, turning back to my computer. “You run off to your beautiful model friends the second I’m gone.”
He chuckled, lifting one shoulder in an elegant half-shrug. Jesus, everything he did was worthy of being on the cover of a magazine.
“What else am I to do when you leave for work, amore?” He pouted, perching himself on the edge of my desk, leaning over to toy with the ends of my curls. “Waste away until you come back to me?”
“You’re a hopeless romantic, darling.” I tutted, going back to my emails. It was unsettling to have him in my office, with business and pleasure overlapping far too closely for my liking. “You need to find someone who can give you all the roses your pretty heart desires.”
“I’m worried that you’ve found that someone for yourself,” he mused, his fingers trailing over my shoulders.
“What do you mean?” I asked, swallowing the groan that threatened to slip out as his strong fingers kneaded the knots in my shoulders.
“What else?” he teased. “I haven’t seen you in forever, and when I surprise you at work you don’t scold me. You talk about me finding someone else.”
